U.S. Defends Wedding Party Air Raid
The U.S. government was justified in an air raid that likely killed innocent Afghan civilians because the strike was aimed at enemy targets where "bad guys" were hiding, deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Monday.
Afghan officials say 48 Afghan civilians were killed and 117 others were injured July 1 when a U.S. AC-130 gunship fired on several villages in Uruzgan province. Among the dead were 25 people at a wedding celebration, Afghans said.
U.S. officials say the attack was launched after forces reported coming under anti-aircraft fire around the villages. A joint U.S.-Afghan investigation is underway.
"We are always concerned when we believe we may have killed innocent people and we think that happened and we regret that," Wolfowitz said during a visit to Bagram air base, headquarters for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. "We have no regrets about going in after bad guys and there were some there."
The attack angered many Afghans because it followed a series of mistaken raids and friendly fire incidents, most of which occurred in the ethnic Pashtun areas of the south.
Since the attacks, U.S. forces have been fired on several times in different parts of Afghanistan. It was not clear if the attacks on U.S. troops are linked to the airstrike.
In response to the civilian deaths, the governor of Kandahar province, Gul Agha Sherzai, demanded that U.S. troops seek local permission before striking at suspected al-Qaida and Taliban units in the south. The United States opposes the idea.
Sherzai also wants a 500-man rapid reaction force to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives and a 3,000-strong unit to patrol part of the borders with Pakistan and Iran.
Some southern governors are meeting Monday to discuss Sherzai's plan, which could undermine a U.S.-backed plan to build a national army controlled by President Hamid Karzai's government.
Wolfowitz is to meet Karzai in Kabul Monday.
In Bagram, Wolfowitz spoke to U.S. soldiers, whom he thanked for their bravery and skill.
He said "maybe half" of the top al-Qaida and Taliban leaders had been caught and "the ones that are still left ... are hard to find."
"We will be here as long as it takes to do the job," Wolfowitz said.
In other war-related developments:
Original U.N. estimates were that about 800,000 of the four million Afghans living elsewhere would return to their homeland after the fall of the Taliban. Using those numbers, the U.N. collected donations of $205 million that was supposed to cover food and supplies to rebuild homes. That's $66 million short of what the U.N. says is now needed. "I have to say, if the international community does not get its act together soonest, we are on the threshold of a major humanitarian crisis," said Ragnmila Ek, a spokesman for UNHCR.